{"id":6655,"date":"2013-10-21T15:39:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T19:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/?p=6655"},"modified":"2016-07-20T16:05:56","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T20:05:56","slug":"its-my-revision-and-ill-cry-if-i-want-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/2013\/10\/21\/its-my-revision-and-ill-cry-if-i-want-to\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s My Revision and I’ll Cry if I Want To"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"photo<\/a>
photo courtesy of: smosh.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, I was standing in my kitchen with the setting sun streaming through the windows, my hands wrinkled from twenty-minutes of washing dishes, and tears pouring from my cheeks and plunking down into the dishwater like rain.\u00a0 <\/span>I was crying, really<\/i> crying.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m not talking about the silent whimpers that trickle from me while watching Titanic<\/i> for the third time, I\u2019m talking about genuine sobs; the kind that originates in the center of you and pull your heart out of your chest on their way up.<\/p>\n

What was it that had me so upset?\u00a0 <\/span>Revision.\u00a0 <\/span>You see, weeks earlier I had sent my book off to my agent, confident that I had revised it for the last time<\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/span>And I really, really<\/em> thought I had.\u00a0 <\/span>I spent weeks deleting, rewriting, and reshaping my book.\u00a0 <\/span>I worked hard<\/i>.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I (sort of) neglected my children, missed a few meals, lived under piles of laundry, and fell completely behind on Boardwalk Empire<\/i><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>But when all was said and done, it was worth the sacrifice.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I nailed it.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I was in the clear.\u00a0 <\/span>Publication was just around the corner, I was sure of it.<\/p>\n

Then, on an ordinary Monday evening, the familiar DING! I’ve assigned to my agent\u2019s email address yanked me from the dinner table and I dove for my phone.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

I expected to read: \u00a0<\/span>I love it!\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m taking it out tomorrow to publishers.\u00a0 <\/span>I love you!\u00a0 <\/span>You are so talented, and you have great eyes.<\/i>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, I got: We are so close! But\u2026<\/b> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I was shattered.\u00a0 <\/span>I stood in my kitchen with my hands in that soapy water and I just sobbed.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Not because I had to rewrite the book again, but because I felt like a failure<\/b>.\u00a0 <\/span>As a writer, my very existence hangs on my ability to write and to sell this novel.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve dedicated my education to it, spent the better part of my daughter\u2019s lives writing it, and promised my husband that our sacrifices would all be worth it.\u00a0 <\/span>Now, I had nothing.\u00a0 <\/span>No publication.\u00a0 <\/span>No reward. \u00a0<\/span>Just that \u201cbut\u2026\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I hated that but.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Two days later in the Writing Center,<\/a> I consulted with a student who had written a marvelous paper of which she was very proud.\u00a0 <\/span>She beamed as she read it out loud and she had every right to swell with pride.\u00a0 <\/span>The introduction was strong, the argument supported, and the organization was clear.\u00a0 <\/span>But something was off.\u00a0 <\/span>When I read the paper as a whole, it didn\u2019t address the assignment.\u00a0 <\/span>I chose my words carefully, as I always do with students.\u00a0 <\/span>I asked her to interpret the assignment her instructor had given the class.\u00a0 <\/span>I then asked her to tell me how her paper aligned with those instructions.\u00a0 <\/span>She hesitated.\u00a0 <\/span>She searched the paper. \u00a0<\/span>She looked at the ceiling.\u00a0 <\/span>She scratched an imaginary itch on her left ear.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt doesn\u2019t,\u201d she said softly, \u201cit doesn\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>She was visibly shaken.\u00a0 <\/span>She was defeated.\u00a0 <\/span>It was as if she was the one with the tears in the dishwater and I was the big \u201cbut.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WC\"<\/a>As I explained the assignment and how she could address some of the larger issues, I was careful to point out all of the things she did well.\u00a0 <\/span>This is a good paper, I assured her.\u00a0 <\/span>You are a good writer.\u00a0 <\/span>And I wasn\u2019t lying.\u00a0 <\/span>She was, by all accounts, a very talented student.\u00a0 <\/span>She simply missed the mark on this assignment.\u00a0 <\/span>She aimed left when the bull\u2019s-eye was right.\u00a0 <\/span>This misinterpretation of her assignment was not an indication of her abilities as a student.\u00a0 <\/span>Just like my inability to properly construct a convincing arc for my protagonist\u2019s best friend was not an indicator of my talent.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We just needed to revise, to reshape, and to try again.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The student left with tear-streaked cheeks and a much-improved paper, I\u2019m sure of it.\u00a0 <\/span>And that night I went home and began working on revision number 13,886 of my novel.<\/p>\n

Revision does not equal failure.\u00a0 <\/span>Revision is growth<\/strong>.\u00a0 <\/span>I never understood those words more than when I became a novelist.\u00a0 <\/span>My book has come so far from when I wrote the first draft.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a different book entirely.\u00a0 <\/span>And with each draft, I learn and grow as a writer.\u00a0 <\/span>I am more proud of my book today that I have ever been of anything.\u00a0 <\/span>I pass this message along to my students, and it is a philosophy we hold dear in the Writing Center:\u00a0 The first draft is the creating, the shaping, and the imagining.\u00a0 The revision is where the real writing happens.<\/p>\n

Bring us your creation.\u00a0 Call the Writing Center today at: 570-941-6147 or writing-center@scranton.edu<\/p>\n

Ask about our weekend hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I was standing in my kitchen with the setting sun streaming through the windows, my hands wrinkled from twenty-minutes of washing dishes, and tears pouring from my cheeks and plunking down into the dishwater like rain.\u00a0 I was crying, really crying.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about the silent whimpers that trickle from me while […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[651],"tags":[107,479,572,653],"class_list":["post-6655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-center","tag-ctle","tag-students","tag-writing","tag-writing-center-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6655"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6665,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6655\/revisions\/6665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}